Five Reasons
by nyet khan
Summary: Five reasons why Naruto will never be like the Fourth Hokage and other tales.
1. Chapter 1

**_Disclaimer: Don't own it. There will be no talk of legal action._**

**Five reasons why Naruto will never be like the Fourth Hokage**

**1.**

For twelve years the Fourth was the third greatest man in Naruto's mind, right after the Sandaime Hokage and the Ramen stand owner. That all changed the night Mizuki-sensei revealed the truth about the demon fox and it's sealing.

**2.**

Kazama Kira is sixty-three years old and lives two days walk from Konoha. She is the mother of the Fourth Hokage and the last person to bear the Kazama name. What few know is two days after the Fourth's death she asked to hold her son's legacy. It was only the quick actions of the Sandaime's personal ANBU that prevented her assassination attempt on the infant Naruto.

**3**.

Naruto will be seventeen and a chuunin when Iwa launches a surprise raid on Konoha. When the attack starts Naruto will be standing near Fuji Dai, a local merchant who nearly killed a six-year old Naruto in a drunken haze.

Naruto will make sure to catch Fuji's eyes right before an Iwa-nin kills him. The Iwa-nin will die a second later. Three weeks later Fuji's widow will come across a picture of her husband as a child, grinning widely next to a blond-haired boy. She will think nothing of it.

**4.**

When the new Rokudaime is being considered, Naruto will lay a hand over his wife's round belly and make a choice.

**5.**

Jiraya will be nursing an ugly bruise courtesy of Tsunade-hime's disdain over his 'research' in the presence of eight-year old Uzumaki Aya. It will only be then in the peaceful home of his one-time apprentice that he will realize it takes a great man to die for his cause. It takes an even greater man to live for his.

Naruto could have told him that at twelve.

Fin


	2. Chapter 2

**Five Times the Village Elders Lost and Naruto Won**

**1.**

The day after the demon fox was sealed. It was only Sandaime's voice that tipped the scale in the infant's favor.

**2**.

The day Tsunade lost a necklace over a bet.

She was the last Hokage that had the power to kill Naruto. When the idea was causally suggested to her, she reacted…_violently_.

**3. **

The day Godaime Hokage appointed Naruto as her successor. While the Village Elders had power they had nowhere near the absolute power a _kage_ did nor was Tsunade anywhere near as indulgent as Sandaime had been.

**4**.

The day Naruto's name first appeared in Iwa's Bingo Book.

It had become increasingly unwise to slander and shun a ninja that could kill you and make it look like an accident.

By then even the grocery-shop owner that used to chase Naruto out would keep his head bowed as the ninja picked up his supplies.

**5.**

Simply put, they were old.

Naruto outlived them all.

As a final nail in the coffin the next generation of Elders included a Naruto-indulgent Jiraya.


	3. Chapter 3

**Five Reasons Why Team Seven Broke Before It Began**

**1.**

Hatake Kakashi saw ghosts.

It was just a pity he didn't see past these ghosts till Sasuke's neck burned beneath his master's power and Naruto was dragging a Toad Sennin to the nearest Ramen stand.

**2. **

Sakura loved Sasuke.

It was about the only thing Naruto never forgave Sasuke for. Gennin teams were supposed to be family and even Naruto found it hard to accept the fact he would always be second in everything he'd ever wanted.

**3.**

Naruto said surprisingly little for being so loud.

It wasn't till he was half-way across the continent that anyone realized how little he had ever shared with anyone. For a boy who was quite willing to give his life for his comrades he was remarkably unwilling to share overmuch of the burdens that shadowed him.

**4.**

Sakura didn't know what it meant to fight.

She was the last to understand any of her teammates, being the only one not to be reared in a world of sacrifice and promises. She was the only one that had never been forced to give up something dear in the name of shadowy fate.

As such she didn't realize the kind of chains a shinobi like Kakashi carried, the utter trauma of being the "last" Uchiha, or just how much Naruto needed for her to look at him as more than the third in her private fantasy.

**5.**

The Sharingan demanded blood.

Two out of last three wielders of the Sharingan had willingly and unwillingly unlocked its ultimate form, Mangekyo Sharingan. Sasuke just had to pick which of his teammates would serve as the alter for his power.

Something else no one warned Team Seven about.


	4. Chapter 4

**Five Truths Aburame Shino Helped Inuzuka Kiba Realize**

**1.**

Hinata really did like Naruto.

_Really._

**2.**

The blond dobe who eliminated Kiba in the Chuunin preliminaries wasn't lying when he kept saying he would be Hokage.

Shino knew power; logically that was one of the pillars a Hokage must stand on. Naruto had that in spades and then some.

Shino knew charisma; a requirement for any Hokage must be the willingness of his people to follow him. Like him or hate him, everyone followed Naruto.

Shino knew determination. He had watched all his comrades, kept an eye on them even if very few of them would ever know the extend of his concern. As such he'd seen a wild boy, directionless and brimming with so much unknown, take a dream and quite energetically beat it into anyone that even thought to hear.

Logically, if the wild boy who became a powerhouse gennin grew up some more, one day Shino will be calling him Hokage-sama.

**3.**

Shino might like bugs.

That still didn't mean he had anything to do with Akamura's fleas.

**4.**

While Shino and Kiba might appear to be one of the most polar opposite pairs among the gennin, they were actually quite similar.

Both had grown up with a pack mentality; they never needed a test to figure out that together they were stronger.

While both knew this instinctively, only Shino realized it mentally.

It was only in a C-rank turned B-rank mission (infamously common that year, much to the Shinobi Supervisor's chagrin) when both boys turned to each other and recognized the look each boy gave the other.

"_I'll stay behind! Another second, another chance."_

Instead they fought together, giving their client the time to escape with Hinata, and dragged each other into safety.

After all, they were Team Eight.

**5.**

A short-tempered dog-lover, a weird bug-boy, and a chronically shy clan princess was all that Team Eight had ever needed.

They couldn't be happier.


	5. Chapter 5

**Five Lessons On Being A Human Sacrifice**

**1.**

Demons had nothing to do with a demon hosts' strength.

It was actually a precedent that either boy survived the tampering of their bodies, something that would have surprised Yondaime had he lived a second longer.

It was unfortunate that both children would be constantly dismissed as having become so strong thanks to their demons. In fact, had they not been as strong as they were neither would have lived to make their names mean something besides human sacrifice.

**2.**

Neither will know, but the first assassination attempt on Naruto and Gaara went eerily alike.

A rather foolish Chunin from their respective villages will think to assassinate the five-year old boys. While Gaara's absolute defense will protect him from the swing of a sword, Naruto's absolute offense will literally fry the ninja into a husk before the Chunin has a chance to release his kunai.

Coincidently this will be the point when both boys choose separate paths. Gaara's absolute defense will settle on his shoulders for the rest of his life while Naruto will scramble out of the quickly spreading fire and watch, hidden on a nearby perch, as his orphanage burns to the ground from a fire no _man_ can stop. The incident will be correctly attributed to a bundled up assassination attempt on Naruto and he will be promptly given his own apartment.

Naruto will sometimes manage to forget the trapped screams of the Headmistress.

It was around that time that Naruto decided to learn forgiveness, both for his sake but mostly for Konoha.

**3.**

Both boys have contemplated killing their teachers at least _once._

It wasn't much of secret what Gaara thought of Baki. The fact Baki was useful was the only thing that sparred him on some of Gaara's more bloodthirsty days and sometimes even then the older man had to move _fast_.

It was a _secret_ what Naruto contemplated doing the first time he found out Kakashi was the star student of the Yondaime. Naruto will never admit that fact to anyone

**4.**

The year the Chunin exams will be held at Suna, Naruto will accompany them as a jounin and the personal representative of the Godaime Hokage. During the exams he will be seated next to the Kazekage (a privilege no one will begrudge him, not even the Mizukage).

No one will remember exactly how the conversation started only that Naruto will look to the mesh of ninja at his back, a mix of Suna and Konoha ninja that grew up as allies unknowingly thanks to the accord found on a battlefield between two demon hosts. Someone will remark on Gaara's absolute defense and absentmindedly wonder if all demon hosts are likewise protected. Those that know of Naruto's condition will look at him and he will give him the strangest smile they've ever seen on his face, something not quite bitter but not all together comforting.

"_The more powerful you are the more an absolute offense makes sense."_

**5.**

Contrary to popular belief the Yondamine Hokage wasn't a better seal master than Chiyo of Suna.

When Jiraiya will ask to see Gaara's seal he will find nothing wrong with it and wonder why Gaara was tortured so much in his sleep and Naruto wasn't.

Naruto, who will overhear the conversation, will give the gathered ninja such an odd look for the longest time before inviting the Kazekage to spar out in the dunes.

Jiraiya will wonder but never find the courage to ask Naruto what he sees in his dreams.


	6. Chapter 6

**Five Times The Kyuubi Was Not Held Back**

**1.**

In a medical tent (the hospital having been evacuated) a Medic-nin will quietly inform the Yondaime's messenger of the stillborn boy delivered and the death of the would-be mother.

While such news will shatter hasty made plans, the Fourth is a prime example of a Konoha prodigy and as such he'll turn to the next best thing.

Hyuga Yin will plead with her Clan and Husband but in the end Hiashi himself will deliver her to the Yondaime. Even as the last brushstroke is completed on her swollen stomach Yin will cry both for herself and for her unborn daughter.

The Medic-nins' won't look her in the eye as the birthing pangs tear at her body, the premature labor bringing her daughter more than two months early.

Hyuga Yin will die twenty-six minutes after the Yondaime, in death screaming her daughter's name—_Anchuu_.

Hyuga Anchuu will prove her legacy twelve years later when she finally becomes the submissive personality against the demon. The Kyuubi no Kitsune will not forgive. Hyuga Hinata was never known.

**2.**

Exactly thirteen hours after the Fourth Hokage lost his life to the Sealing the Council's vote will circumspect Yondaime's final wishes. The Third Hokage will lose the vote to preserve an infant's life.

The Seal, broken so soon after it was set, will prove too weak to take the Kyuubi with the mortal child into final death.

Nearly a year later the Demon Fox will prove he can in fact escape hell.

This time around there is neither a newly-born child nor a man like Yondaime to become the village's sacrifices.

**3.**

A wide-eyed toddler will be given over to the ANBU, the Council having decided to train the "boy" into Konoha's ultimate weapon.

They will succeed beyond their wildest expectations. The boy will flourish under the ANBU's lessons, becoming a death-winged prodigy of the famed corps.

The ninja known only as Naruto will think nothing when he meets one of his fellow creations, a doll-like boy known only as Sai.

When Uchiha Itachi massacres his Clan save one, the ninja known as Naruto will blink wonderedly at the blood-stained compound. He will then decide Uchiha Itachi served the Uchiha Clan in the same way the ninja known as Naruto was made to serve the whole of Konoha.

Three weeks later a death-shadow will drift from house to house, massacring the whole of Konoha save one. After all, Uchiha Itachi had at one time been one of his…preferred teachers. It was only common courtesy that the human-boy known as Sasuke be left to accomplish whatever plan Uchiha Itachi entrusted him with.

It was truly a pity none of the ANBU lessons ever included humanity.

**4.**

The Kazekage will be utterly unimpressed at how ridiculously easy it is to spirit away Konoha's demon vessel. He will in fact be completely bemused at how _eager _said demon vessel is to leave the village of his birth.

The Kazekage is not a stupid man. Two demon vessels are at lot more effective than one. It's even more fortunate when the Kyuubi vessel stabilizes an increasingly indiscriminately homicidal Gaara.

Years later when Suna launches the joint attack on Konoha, the demon vessels will be nearly unstoppable. Both boys will be the cause of the most death and destruction to Konoha during the battle that interrupted the Chuunin exams.

Orochimaru will only have seconds to gloat before a vision of red chakra erases his existence. While neither boy had developed more than passing respect for the dead Kazekage, both knew their interest lay with securing Suna's position. And no village can forgive the assassination and impersonation of their kage.

Unfortunately for the Third Hokage's legacy, there won't be enough embers left after the attack to rekindle the once great Hidden Village of Konoha.

**5.**

Uzumaki Naruto will become one of the greatest ninja's Konoha has ever produced, certainly one of the most powerful. His name will be known by his enemies and allies, his deeds honored by the people he helped and served.

And when returning from a month-long mission he will find only embers where once his house stood, charred bones of his son nailed in the front-yard. Uzumaki Naruto will finally prove there is something out there he won't forgive.

Konoha will only have a second to flinch from the oncoming wave of Blood-Red Chakra that will literally obliterate the area.

Daikirai Shijuu, a stanch opposer to the continual existence of the Demon Fox, will have only a moment to think his plot might have been a _bad_ idea. His ANBU collaborators, who would have "caught" the demon in the act of murdering his own spawn, won't even have that.

End.

_Hinata—in the sun_

_Anchuu—in the dark_

_AN: Ideas welcomed._


	7. Chapter 7

**Five Times Naruto Loved**

**1.**

Yujiro will be dead and Midan half-way there when the Cloud-nin come into the cell to take Hinata away. Naruto, bound and gagged under seal after chakra-sealing seal will meet pale eyes and both will know that it will be for the last time.

Hinata will be gone in seconds, leaving behind red-rust stains on the cell floor and a pair of burning lips.

And the only thought Naruto can think about is_: it is not enough._

Thirty-eight minutes later he will prove once more why even the ANBU sometimes couldn't catch him when he was a nothing but ball of orange obscenities. Because while it takes a great ninja to use chakra effectively, it takes an even greater ninja to use none at all.

_It is enough,_ Hinata will think as the medic ninja begin prepping to take her eyes.

Naruto will disagree.

He will then share his feeling with several Cloud-nin.

**2.**

It had little to do with being a demon host.

The Academy teachers had long ago agreed that Uzumaki Naruto would be the first in his class to die. Some people just weren't suited to be ninja, least of all blundering, loud, foolish people like Naruto.

The fact he survived his Genin days is largely credited to Kakashi.

The fact he survived his Chuunin years is also attributed to Jiraya.

The fact he survived his Jounin squad is chalked up to the crazy regenerative power of the Demon.

But nothing will quite explain why lauded prodigies flared and crashed in a fraction of the time. Why by the time he is thirty and running Jiraya's old spy network, half his original classmates have become nothing more but benedictions to toast or curse on drunken nights. And while there is a sick pride in having outlived both the likes of Akatsuki and their freak-arsenal of near immortal ninja, Orochimaru and his puppet Uchiha, and comrades who'd always been praised as being worthier, it does not change the fact that to live is to make friends with ever increasing loneliness.

So when he meets Natsumi, a seventeen-year old girl to his thirty, he does not hesitate past the moment she makes him laugh with true joy.

Even if a year later an old-timers attack on the Demon's bride awakens Natsumi's sleeping bloodline, Naruto will merely sigh and then smile.

It figure he of all people would find Uchiha Itachi's daughter and then proceed to marry her.

**3.**

To be Hokage is to know sacrifice.

It is the most important lesson learned in that office and the key between being a good Hokage and a terrible one.

It can be said that the Rokudaime Hokage was born knowing this lesson. From the moment he came into being he was made to sacrifice every shred of normalcy a newborn was due.

So when the time comes he will know his duty as Hokage and welcome the Kazekage's sister as his wife. Because he is young and so is Gaara and both know there are still too many that don't understand them.

It proves to be a remarkable deterrent when confronting a man whose in-laws include a kage.

And while both Temari and Naruto admit they do not love the other, time has a way of gentling all hearts. So there will come a day when Naruto will seek Temari to rest in the desert stillness she will forever carry and Temari will look up and know Naruto is a light when all the world knows only shadow.

And while they admit they did not marry for love it cannot be said they did not find it along the way.

**4.**

Hate and greed and fear fade. Pride and strength and youth pass.

He knows that and much more when he is an old man, free to nap in public and play hard of hearing.

He knows it is neither something a willful, naive Naruto would have believed nor anything an angry, hurt Anko would have acknowledged. He knows neither of them ever had a reason to seek the other back when they were nothing but a mess of painful emotions.

And he thinks that is one of the benefits of having lived long enough to know differently. So while all things pass with time, Anko thinks she has finally found someone to believe in and Naruto has found a reason not to give everything he is so desperately. And both think that is something they will keep longer than all the rest, if only by a little.

Even if some days they are not sure if it is love, they know this sometimes-nameless thing they carry is far more precious.

**5.**

His first love consumed him.

Before his world lost its tinted reflection and he learned to see things for what they truly were Naruto gave himself to love.

He loved her when he was a boy, he loved her all the years he traveled, and he loved her even more when he returned to find her a young woman. And while his love was never something he ever hid it still managed to surprise a great many the day Uzumaki Naruto married Haruno Sakura.

And he loved her even more the day she took the name wife. But despite that nothing could compare when she took his hand and pressed it against her body, whispering _Mother._

And mayhaps he should not have loved her so deeply.

So while little Iruka slept in his room and the night celebrated a rare slice of peace in this Konoha-Sound Siege, Naruto was silent as he followed his wife as she stole from the village into the arms of the other member of Team 7. But while it was true that he loved her enough to give her to the man of her choice and he never stopped loving his first brother-in-arms, Uchiha Sasuke, it did not stop him from slipping a senbon into her heart.

Because while he loved her all those years, he'd also come to love a great deal of people. And his love for her was not enough to weigh against the love of his son or the family he had built within Konoha.

And that was why he would not allow her to give her mind's secrets to Orochimaru's Uchiha. In this age-long war of love within Team 7 neither Haruno Sakura, Uchiha Sasuke, nor Uzumaki Naruto mattered.

It changed the day he whispered back, _Father._

**S**

**END**

**A/N: Thank you Random One-Shot for the prompt but unfortunately for you I don't really like Sakura. **_**Five Times Naruto Fell in Love with Sakura**_** was therefore edited to this version.**


	8. Chapter 8

**Five Hokages That Never Were**

**1.**

Nara Shikamura,

He is brilliant like few in Konoha rarely are, and even then he is something more. He is brilliant with neither the self-serving ambition that has led many of his seniors astray nor the self-sacrificing single-mindedness that have been the end of just as many loyal shinobi. A lifetime of puzzle-games and cloud-watching has given him the patience to bring plans to fruition and the detached ruthlessness of a mastermind to move soldiers as easily as game pieces.

And that is why he knows, even if no one else does, days spend shut away from the reality of steel will make it all too easy for him to forget that reality is paid in blood and wagered on hope.

His humanity is not found in a lonely office above all others.

And that is why he kneels.

**2**.

Danzo.

Even his enemies admit there is no greater patriot than Danzo. Every move, every wager, every mistake have all been made in the name of an eternal Konoha.

But somewhere between a sacrifice made in honor and a sacrifice made in desperation, Danzo misplaced his humanity.

So while there is no greater patriot, by the time he wrestles the right to be called Hokage, more than one shinobi kneels and counts the days till it is time to honorably kneel before another successor.

He is a warmongers for a nation of people breed on war.

And in the end a true Fire Shadow must be more than his people.

Danzo does not know what it means to dream of peace.

**3.**

Orochimaru.

Even if someone dared ask him exactly why he wanted to be Hokage, he isn't quite sure what he would say.

There are the obvious benefits of power, knowledge, command over the strongest shinobi force, and all manner of things. But a genius of his stature knows Hokage isn't the only path to dominance, even if it is the most straightforward.

But before he was the bedtime story parents told to warn children against straying into the dark, and before he was the shinning jewel of his generation, and before he was one third of an awkward whole, and even before he was recognized as a genius, he was an orphan.

And like a whiskered-blond orphan decades later could commiserate, those early years were spend with one all-consuming thought:_ I want._

**4.**

Senju Nawaki.

Before he is a man, he is a ninja. And before he is a ninja, he is a boy. And like all boys he dreams of things bigger than life.

Except even as a child he has been different.

He is Senju, the Heir of Konoha's founding fathers. He is noble and proud and conscious of his responsibilities. In what seems like pre-written destiny, he is born with the strength of character and resilience to one day inherit the august office of Hokage.

But only in death are ninja names ever written in stone. Because to be a ninja means to live in fire, in the wind, in the earth, in the water. And just because he has the strength to bear responsibility does not mean he has the luck to see it through.

So that is why he dies on a battlefield, his sister raging above him, and the yellow-sun and blue sky shinning brightly over a future he will not see.

So yes, he is a little bitter.

He wonders if Tsunade can bear the weight of being Senju's Heiress.

And perhaps he's also a little…tired—

…

**5.**

Sarutobi Konohamaru.

He is another child of legacy, born into names that define much of what he will become. He is a child that can either bend or break under his birthright.

But Konohamaru is lucky in a way. There are always hands ready to hold him should he stumble.

He is noble and bright and strong in spirit. He is Sarutobi but above that he is Konohamaru. In any other time he would have eventually followed his grandfather's footsteps and one day ascended into the highest office in his village.

But he is a child and even as a self-absorbed boy he recognizes those whose fire burn brighter. He is a child during the Elemental Nations last greatest conflict and even if he should still one day ascend to Hokage he will inherit an office that means something entirely different from what defined his grandfather's term.

Because while he is born in an era of endless conflict, he counts himself lucky to see _Aoitsuki_—the blue dawn.

He is only the second person to believe Uzumaki Naruto would change the world.

**END**

**AN: yeah, I'm still kicking.**


End file.
